Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust

A good season for aphids Battling a continual infestation on milkweeds [just staying ahead]

regular wasp killing and eating butterflies as they try to emerge from chryslis

Wasps and also Praying Mantis

All shoots covered in orange aphids. Also ants and wasps. Some strange looking brown & orange caterpillar like things too. Don’t know what they are but they don’t look very friendly. We had lots of butterflies, lots of eggs laid and hatching but sadly all the baby caterpillars were eaten.

many wasps stinging caterpillars

Suspect hedgehog attack. Can you confirm if they are a predator. About 4-5 monarch\’s had migrated down out of the swan plant to the row of marigolds and pupated. next day they were all missing and the marigolds were flattened as if a cat had sat in them.

Brown shield bettle, with hook in catepillar.

We found at least a dozen Praying Mantis today on a bush where our caterpilars have been going too too do their Crystalis,We cut the bush back & only found 10 Crystalis,1 had been gotten into.We expected many more in that bush which is right beside 1 of our Swan Plant gardens.

Praying mantis and wasps are looking rather healthy at the moment because they are eating all our monarch caterpillars. Is there anything we can do to keep these pests away? Also we have orange aphids on the plant, unsure what to use to get rid of them as we don’t want to harm the […]

wasps eatting my baby monarch caterpillers off of the milkweed